Tableau Server on Windows Help

Log File Snapshots (Archive Logs)

Version: 2019.2

Tableau Server includes functionality to generate a snapshot of log files for archival purposes. If you plan to clean up and delete old log files as part of regular server maintenance, you may consider archiving log files to an off-server storage location before deleting them.

Note: For instructions about collecting logs on older versions of Tableau Server for Windows, see the archived online help on the Tableau Help page.

Or, if you are working with Tableau Support on a case, the support engineer may request a server log file snapshot.

This topic describes:

How to generate a log file snapshot

How to send the snapshot directly to Tableau Support from the Tableau Server administration tools

On the Options page, enter or select the options you want, including a Description, time Range of log files to be included, and the optional types of logs to be included (Include Netstat Info, Include MSInfo, Include Postgres Data, Include Recent Crash Dumps), then click Generate Log File Snapshot.

The log file snapshot is saved to a fixed location on the computer where TSM and Tableau Server are installed. If you have a multi-node installation, the snapshot is saved to the initial node of the cluster. The location is specified by the basefilepath_log_archives variable.

By default the snapshot is saved to:

C:\ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\files\log-archives

You can find the current location by querying the basefilepath.log_archives setting, and change the location by specifying a new value for basefilepath.log_archive. For more information, see tsm File Paths.

After you generate the snapshot, you can select it and upload it to Technical Support, download it to your local machine, or delete it:

To download a local copy of the snapshot or to delete it, select the snapshot under Log Files and then select the appropriate Action.

Uploading log snapshots for Tableau Support

Click the Maintenance tab.

Select the snapshot you want to send.

Click Upload to Technical Support Case.

In the dialog that displays, enter the Support Case Number and your Contact Email Address, then click Upload Snapshot.

By default, this command creates a zip file containing all of the log
files. If you are running a distributed installation of Tableau Server, perform this step from the initial node. Logs from all nodes will be included in the zip file.

To create a log file snapshot:

On the initial node, open a command prompt as administrator.

Type the following command:

tsm maintenance ziplogs
-l -f <filename>

where <filename> is
name of the zipped archive file you want to create. Choose a unique
name with no spaces. If an existing ziplog with the same file name already exists the creation of the file will fail unless you include the -o option to force an overwrite, delete the existing file, or specify a different name in the command.

You can specify a time range for the snapshot and you can also specify which types of logs to include. For more information, see tsm maintenance ziplogs.

The log file snapshot is saved to a fixed location on the computer where TSM and Tableau Server are installed. If you have a multi-node installation, the snapshot is saved to the initial node of the cluster. The location is specified by the basefilepath_log_archives variable.

By default the log file snapshot is saved to:

C:\ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\files\log-archives

You can find the current location by querying the basefilepath.log_archives setting, and change the location by specifying a new value for basefilepath.log_archive. For more information, see tsm File Paths.

Sending log archives to Tableau Support

You can send log files to Tableau Support as a part of a customer support case (a customer support case number is required). Before sending a log file, use tsm maintenance ziplogs command to combine the log files into a single zip file archive. If you are creating the archive to send to Tableau Support, see the Knowledge Base for information about how to upload large files.